Apple Butter

If you follow the Facebook page, you probably saw me post a photo of these lovely apples a while back.  See, upon dropping Hannah back off at her house after her portrait session, her mother met me at the car with two giant bags of apples from the tree in their back yard.  Since there is no way we could eat all of those lovely apples, I got busy and turned them into apple butter.

Can you believe I actually have some friends up here who have never had apple butter?  Crazy, I know.  They didn't even know what it was or how to eat it.  Today I'll show you how I made mine.  Don't be scared off by the fact that it's a canning project.  Canning really isn't that hard and it pays off all year long.  I use recipes {including this one} from the Ball Blue Book.  It's amazing and only about $5 to buy.  Follow the instructions and you'll be a preserving guru in no time.  Butters are the perfect first canning project for the novice.  They're easy and they don't really require anything that you probably don't already have in your kitchen.  

Start with the large sauce pot or soup pot or whatever you'll be cooking your apples in.  Put it on your scale to see how much it weighs.  Then go in on the apples.  Peel them and start putting them into the pot.  I used a baby scale...but you can use any scale, really.  Or you can estimate.  You need about four pounds of apples.  That's about 16 medium apples.

Once you have all your apples peeled, cut up and put in your pot, add 2 cups of water and put it on the stove.

Turn your apples on medium heat and simmer them until they're nice and soft.

While those are cooking, we'll get into the canning part of the job.  This recipe makes about 3 pints of apple butter.  So prepare your jars.  I like to put it in smaller jars so I have more to hand out as gifts, but that's up to you.  The jars should be clean, but to further sterilize them, I boil them in my canner {aka biggest pot I own.}  Put your jars in the pot {mine's the blue one in the top right photo} then fill it up with water enough to cover all the jars .  Turn the heat on high and cover it with a lid.

While your jars are heating up put water in a skillet, then add your canning lids.  They need to be heated in order to seal properly.  Also, take this time to make sure you've got a lid and a ring for each of your jars.  Simmer your lids until you are ready to use them.

Once the apples are soft pour them out into a bowl.  At this point, you can ladle them into a food processor or use a potato masher to puree them.  I made two batches.  One using each technique and I love them both.  At any rate, once they are pureed, pour them back in the pot.  Add 4 cups of sugar 2 tsp cinnamon and 1/4 tsp cloves.  Cook slowly until it's thick enough to round up on a spoon.  This takes a long time.

Once your butter is nice and thick, it's time to put it in the cans.  The little gadget in the lower right photo is very handy for this.  If you own no other canning supplies, you should at least get one of these.  You put it in the jar, then ladle whatever you are canning in.  Like a funnel.  It makes things much more neat.  If you don't have one, just use caution.  Ladle the apple butter into a jar, be sure to leave 1/4" space at the top, use tongs to remove a lid from the skillet, then twist a ring on.  Use a towel to hold the jar while you do this.  It'll be hot.  Then put the car carefully back into the boiling canner.

Repeat with all of your jars.  Let the water in your canner return to a rapid boil then set a timer for  10 minutes.  When the time is up pull out your jars with the tongs and set them on the counter to cool.  As they cool, you should hear each lid "pop" as it vacuum seals down.  That's a good thing.

Then eat it.  Ice cream, bread, rolls, a peanut butter sandwich, it'd probably even be good in coffee.  It's best warm.  So if you have some bonus that didn't fit into a jar...all the better.  It's so good.

Amy